Failing

an ode

the phrase 'most scholars agree' is deployed
often to deny beauty and design to the poor
that a fisherman from Galilee could turn a phrase like
'I am no more in the world, 
but these are in the world, 
and I am coming to you.'

that is the standard move you know
when you want to deny someone credit
that a woman, unmarried no less, could drop
'amidst the conditions of an imperfect social state, 
in which great feelings will often take the aspect of error, 
and great faith the aspect of illusion'

no man in his britches can handle such.
no one can allow it to be.

in the embers of failure
there is always a path
painful that it might be
to get to the place that 
you were always supposed to be

the key change is a musical
leading by the nose
and the reintroduction of metrics
that you did not pace yourself for
is a poet's red flag

flying high on the battlements
flying high on the battlements in D

do you think that when George Eliot
sat in her window, looking down on
Agnes while she watered the garden
that when she looked up to the sky
she saw the same stars that John saw on Patmos?

do you think
for a second
that John was
describing
what he understood
or literally?

do you get 
offended when
someone says
that you are wrong
but you do not agree
in your heart?

do you hum hymns
that your mother
taught you in the key
of A-minor that
the presbyter insists
are to be in E?

in the purple hours
when you wish you 
had stayed in the dream
do you feel pain
from an unseen prophecy
that you impose on yourself

or do you wait until
the yellow dawn
to run yourself through
the paces of an imagined
gospel of un-prosperity
a very, merry un-gospel to you

are you a poet who parses
the verses of your peers
to find references to dead poets
that never knew society
that never intended to be a footnote
in an Irishman's pallid sonnet

are you a poet who peers
at the papers of the poets
who sit in the front rows
at the gatherings of poets
that need each other to know
that they too are singing still?

as the digital paper takes
this my digital ink
will it stand the test of time
that the greats who stole
Latin and Greek inscriptions
in the same way we interweave
lyrics of musicians who were just guessing

guessing at what the A&R man wanted
because the disk jockeys had come
forward with a new trend because
they were annoyed at how great
McCartney was at everything
like did he have to sing his own backup?

and then the new elites
writing on blogs and vlogs
try to tell you that 
Tusk is somehow better than Rumors
and Rumors was dipped in the
acid of just incredible sales

that on a cobbled street somewhere
in a European town
where the river is older
than the streets
a boy can write an aria
that will someday crush your soul

are you not offended?
are you not afraid to fail?
are you so full of ire that
you don't know that we all know
that in the corners of shady
bars we laugh at your conceit

---this is the moment when you think the poem is over---

in fact this is the point where I need to tell you
that I once sat in a log cabin
it was long and wide, with recessed seating
like the pits from the seventies

in the pit sat the Moirai at one end
Clotho smiling as always
Lachesis intense and focused
and Atropos almost sad as she worked

and to my right sat Athena and Arachne
before their argument
Arachne had midnight in her hair
and Athena wore sun as a bonnet

to my left giggling were the sisters Norn
Urðr was farthest from me
Verðandi was practically next to me
and Skuld sat a bit away, almost in shadows

the floor of the cabin was made from the roots
of Yggdrasil and many dwarves and elves
flitted about tending to the many-colored jacket
that they were collaborating on

they did not acknowledge me
nor each other
but sat in concert
playing the music of the loom

and when I stood free
wearing the jacket of my dreams
I saw my sister Naomh Bríd
and we danced a light jig

heading towards the peat moss
she had shamrocks in her eyes
and I felt the power of the moats
and the walled cities of stone

in my blood, in my ancient blood
there is a call to die to myself
and for years we called it sadness
medicated it, therapied it

most scholars agree that 
I am incapable of writing
this poem, this ode to self-immolation
that my trivial failures
are but insignificant blights
upon that of the high-born

and how could I have found the
Upelkuchen on my own
how could I find the Upelkuchen
there are cabinets full of the cake
in the libraries of the darkest
prisons on the earth

in my blood is revolution
in my memory is harmony
the harmonies that are hummed
in the keys that I choose
in the keys that I sing
in the key that is I

and in the singing of the songs
that the ancients whispered
to the youth listening raptly
passed through briar hedges
and in the alleys of long forgotten
we give ourselves away

in failing we forward
the promises failed to us
that on some stone
someday a child can pull
a sword of flames
and lead them.